This dichotomy implies other protagonists and other types of experiences. The trials of the revolution have institutionalised the opposition between the injured and the families of the victims of the revolution, most of them by now members of certain revolutionary associations, on the one hand, and a few representatives of the repressive forces on the other (namely the representatives of the army who have been accused for their violent intervention against protestors before fraternising on 22 December). Only a few individuals have been made responsible for the casualties that occurred before 22 December 1989 (the day of Ceausescu?s fall). These ones perceive themselves as scapegoats. In the public eye, their having to stand trial has brought a serious offence and caused severe damage to the image of the army as an institution, given the perspective of NATO integration. On the other hand, the victims of the revolution in Cluj have had quite different experiences. Some of them had bullet-inflicted wounds that have still not healed. Others, members of the heroes? families, bear inner wounds and material difficulties that are sometimes overwhelming. I shall illustrate a few aspects regarding the social recognition of the revolutionaries in the community that they belong to; their attitudes towards the guilty and towards the need to finding out the truth, through the voices of some members of a Revolutionary Association from Cluj, whom I have interviewed. These can be found in the Archive of the Oral History Institute.
Thoughts on the social acknowledgment of the revolutionaries:
?All these rights and medals are not unsatisfactory for me, materially speaking; I am disappointed from a moral point of view. I don?t really need all these, what I need is rather the truth, I need to know what happened; a moral reward would have been more special if the society had taken definite steps in other directions than the present ones.?[17]
?Public opinion is the one that causes a bitter feeling in me: people I haven?t met for 12 years asking me what?s wrong with your leg?.. I tell them: drop it, don?t ask me that, such a long time has passed. And still, if I tell them anything they ask me: ?Why did you go there??? This is the bitter feeling I get because the public opinion cannot appreciate properly how serious the events that happened then were. They?d rather believe those who said that a few drunkards had got out into the streets. So they minimise things and, what is more, they even disapprove of us. It is easier to stay indoors and to get things for nothing.?[18]
On the public opinion of revolutionaries and their families:
(speaking of her husband?s death, her acquaintances say):? ?Why did he go there?(?) What do these people (the revolutionaries, those injured, n.a) want more? We are also poor; everybody is poor??[19]
On attitudes towards those who were responsible for her husband? death:
?I would have been content if they had only come to ask us for pardon? the gentlemen who shot, tovarasii, securistii, whatever they were? the terrorists?(?) For me and my family it is no longer important if they are punished or not; if then in 1990 any justice had been done, now it would all be different. It is too late now?.[20]
